On Wednesday the World Cup reached its halfway stage, Australia and the Netherlands playing the 24th of its 48 matches, and its shape and character, initially as hazy as if seen from a distance through the blanket of smog that sits above many of its venues, is starting to become clear – and quite compelling. If these are indeed the end of days for this increasingly marginalised format, it might have quite the death mask.
It was England who really got it going. India’s dominance has driven engagement, but the champions’ collapse has been its most compelling subplot. If they have achieved nothing else – and they pretty much have achieved nothing else – then by losing to Afghanistan, England provided the tournament with the animating defibrillation of its first great shock. By then, Australia had lost their first two games to be cast into apparently short-lived crisis, India had just played their massively anticipated match against Pakistan, and two days later the Netherlands upset previously in-form South Africa. It had taken a while, but the tournament was up and running.
It has not been helped by its format, with one outsized group stage that takes weeks to build up any sense of jeopardy. Even after three miserable weeks – and losing three of their first four games – England’s coach, Matthew Mott, has been able to insist, “I still think we can win this”, while still clinging, if only by his fingertips, to the lifebuoy of rationality. It is a format designed to maximise television revenues at the expense of massively delaying genuine excitement. Signs are it will get there in the end.
But it can be hard to dislodge the first impression, which was created when the England and New Zealand teams lined up for the anthems at the cavernous Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad before the opening game, in front of about 125,000 empty seats. The ground filled up a bit from there without ever reaching even a third of its capacity, and it seemed the famously cricket-loving Indian public had limited ardour for this particular form of the game.
That game alone, though, accounts for around a fifth of all unsold tickets at the tournament so far. There has been some to-and-fro between the International Cricket Council, custodians of the global game, and the Board of Control for Cricket in India, about ticket sales. For two weeks the ICC demanded attendance figures and the BCCI refused to produce them but on Monday, when Afghanistan registered their second shock victory by beating Pakistan, organisers announced the total attendance so far had exceeded half a million. The maximum theoretical attendance at that point was a little over a million, so the tournament is averaging about 50% capacity with a total attendance more than 200,000 greater than the equivalent figure at this stage of the 2019 event.
This is hardly a surprise – India, with a population of 1.4 billion, should shift more tickets than tiny England and its 56 million souls. But though they start at around £6.50, prices increase pretty rapidly. It was always going to be hard to sell seats costing £60, which is more than a quarter of the average monthly salary in India’s urban areas. Organisers know how to put on a show – the laser display during night-time drinks breaks in Dharamsala is a particular highlight – but fans have reported that the areas around the grounds can be disorganised, and the security overzealous.
However many seats have been sold, and however poorly the event has been marketed in some host cities, the enthusiasm of Indians at large is obvious to anyone here. Of course it helps that their players have performed brilliantly under immense pressure, and as a result interest continues to build. Forty-three million people streamed India’s Sunday game against New Zealand on Disney+ Hotstar – surprisingly, eight million more than watched them play Pakistan – with many millions more watching on terrestrial TV.
This interest is obvious as you travel around the country. I have been a passenger in a taxi whose driver kept a phone balanced on his dashboard with the game on, and sat, ignored, at a restaurant while every member of staff concentrated on the cricket, chefs having long since abandoned the kitchen. At Ahmedabad airport on the morning of the Pakistan game, I watched waves of blue-shirted fans arrive from across the country, and on leaving Mumbai experienced the most slow-motion of security searches because the man with the metal-detecting wand wanted to discuss the tournament. At times it seems to be everywhere, on the tip of every tongue.
The impression in England, where with Jos Buttler’s side failing it is again India who are driving what engagement there has been, is of only moderate interest. Since the last great English World Cup failure in 2015 cricket fans have been on a wild ride: the reinvention of the white-ball team under Eoin Morgan culminating in glory in 2019, the advent of Bazball and, for better or worse, the Hundred, last year’s T20 World Cup win, this year’s Ashes. After all of that, it seems it is not just the team’s abilities but the nation’s appetite that has been found wanting. But with the actually interesting part of the tournament only just starting, perhaps there is time for that yet.
The tournament’s slogan is “It Takes One Day”. It’s a very matter-of-fact motto, akin to a football World Cup going with “It Takes About an Hour and a Half”, and it also emphasises the commitment required of fans. Asking anyone to commit seven weeks’ worth of one days is a bit much, and perhaps the format is destined to crumple under the weight of its in-built excess. If so, it’s throwing one hell of a farewell bash.
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